Gab.com, the pro-free speech social network, says traffic has increased by more than 750% in recent days, following President Donald Trump’s blacklisting of most platforms traditional technologies.
“Our traffic has increased by 753% in the last 24 hours. Tens of millions of hits, ”Gab said in response to a question about slow upload speeds.
The Free Speech Network has announced that it will bring ten new servers online to handle the increased volume of traffic.
Gab was the first free speech alternative to Twitter. It takes a strong stance on freedom of expression, allowing all legal content except pornography. Users are allowed to control their own experience on the platform through the creation of custom filters and word blocks.
Gab takes an equally strong stance on illegal content and threats of violence, encouraging users to proactively report such content for removal.
Despite this long-standing policy, Apple and Google have for years banned the Gab app from their app stores, a fate that has also happened to Parler.
We have tens of thousands of volunteer users monitoring the site for threats and illegal activity. They pass them on to us and, if necessary, we pass them on to the police. Our moderation is decentralized through Gab groups, which are moderated by the users themselves.
– Gab.com (@getongab) January 9, 2021
Launched in May 2017, Gab has faced censorship and crackdown attempts from multiple quarters, leading to innovative approaches to get around it.
To avoid censorship by cloud hosting companies, Gab maintains its own physical servers. Gab is also in the process of developing the Gab phone, to bypass App Store censorship.
Meet Gab’s phone.
Yes it is real.
Were running @ GrapheneOS on a Pixel 4a.
It’s Android minus everything and everything Google with additional security and privacy features. pic.twitter.com/FuSBjlNMLI
– Gab.com (@getongab) January 10, 2021
Gab also developed Dissenter, a browser extension that adds a comments section to every website on the Internet. When traditional browsers like Chrome and Mozilla Firefox banned the extension, Gab launched her own web browser, also known as Dissenter.
Responding to the increased traffic, Gab Founder and CEO Andrew Torba gave Breitbart News a concise comment:
“Checkmate, Silicon Valley.”
Allum Bokhari is the Senior Technology Correspondent at Breitbart News. His new book, #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election, which features exclusive interviews with sources from Google, Facebook and other tech companies, is currently available for purchase.
